Update: I was unfortunately not aware of Shamus Young's severe criticism of Fallout 3 available here to link in the original piece and I regret that. It dovetails rather nicely with what I've written and it's much better executed than my piece. I strongly recommend anyone...

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 3:56 pm Post subject: Violent video games - how old when you first played?

So once again, I've been hearing more news reports and garbage about violent video games, how they're bad and turning kids into terrible human beings.

So, how old were you when you played your first violent video game?

And by "violent" I'm talking... graphic violence, gore that kind of thing.

I think for me, I was seven years old and playing Doom on the Super Nintendo. Back then, that game absolutely terrified me, but for some reason it kept dragging me back to play it again, push through it and somehow finish the damn game.

Like most people, Mortal Kombat was my introduction to violence in games. Same goes for Doom. Like Ugh I saw it at around age 6. I was too young to play the game, as in understand it, I just remember it looking really scary yet somehow fascinating. I got into the Doom games when I was a little older, I'd say at 9 I was playing Doom which was the first violent game I played at home. I can recall playing Doom 2 on my computer while listening to Offspring on CD, good times.

The sad thing was that's about as far as I got when it came to PC gaming... like, ever.

The first game I played where I thought "holy crap, this is the most fucked up thing I have ever played" would have to be Manhunt. When did that come out? 10 years ago? That game actually disturbed me while Doom and MK was just bloody good fun.

Although being a big MGS fan I thought the stealth gameplay was fantastic. Then a year or two after its release people who don't play games found out about it and it get banned or slapped with an AO rating.

Last edited by WickedLiquid on Wed May 08, 2013 8:22 pm; edited 3 times in total